A bunch of people I spoke with had experience with them or knew people who had them and rated them OK. Apparently some where not particularly uniform in thickness, but at least one had been replaced immediately when it was rejected on receipt.

I read many pages of a couple threads on MTBR. Lots of people raving about them and how light they were and strong they felt. A few people had sustained impact damage, and when this happened it was often a long drawn out process to get light-bikes to care. Eventually came to the conclusion the people who were most happy seemed to ride the internet harder than their bikes.

At the time they were moving to the hookless design which helped easy my concerns on impact damage. But I could only find conflicting information on whether or wen the 26 inch moulds would be converted, and more importantly when I could expect the rims as I had trips booked to Queenstown that I wanted the wheels for.

An email conversation failed to clarify if the 26 inch moulds had yet been converted and what timeframe I could expect rims to be received in NZ. But they had managed to include a clear invitation for me to provide my credit card details in every email the sent.

I now am very happy rocking ENVES. No regrets.

Without the time constraints I may well of not bought the ENVES, even at the good but still spendy price I got them for. It's probably 2:1 that I would have got the hookless light-bike rims. But I would still have that nagging doubt every time I steams something rocky / rooty with pace.

Thanks for the above info, Colin, looks like you've done all the research.I was more prepared to take the mechanical risk than the import duty one, since I'm not a fast downhiller.But after all what's been said, I'm going a bit cold on the LB thing, I might reassess my options when I'm back in NZ.

One option is doing a aluminium rim only upgrade, but they're 24 spoke hubs front and back so not ideal.

I bought hookless bead wider rim from LB, hopes from CRC and had a good build done on them by Oli. They are steamed on a hardtail and also done some Enduro races on a fully. Sweet as rim, no burps, easy to tubeless, no deforms or anything.

Personally, I see them as carbon rims without the added marketing/brand tax.

They aren't as true as an enve, but are a very good wheel for the dollar.

They Arrived yesterday, no customs issues : phew:Quick spin indicates all spokes to tension and true as Pics to follow.

Just need to find some tubeless rim tape, the Scotch 8898 tape is not available in Nz unfortunately, so looking for alternatives (don't want to wait for Amazon US), also would like to find some in right width to make life easier, about 35mm I guess for 32mm inner width, given rim channel shape.